Not-So-Great Expectations
by KkarmaCchameleon
Summary: After Lily catches James kissing another girl, two of the Marauders intervene to make sure their friends get back together.


There are things that one gets used to by their seventh year at Hogwarts. Not just used to, no, they come to expect certain events as a fact of life. You're going to accidentally hit a trick step every once in a while, no matter how well you have the stairways memorized. You're going to be distracted and walk through a ghost on occasion. You're going to spill a potion or screw up a spell. You're going to stumble upon a lip-locked couple in a broom cupboard or abandoned corridor. It happens, and it's life.

As a seventh year, Lily Evans took pride in how she'd come to accept the many oddities that this school had to offer, even the bad ones. Being Muggleborn, the first time she'd gotten her leg stuck in a stair, she'd panicked for ten minutes after a kind fourth year had come to her rescue. But now, she didn't even bat an eye at anything that happened here. She was practically impervious to all things unexpected.

But unexpected had its limits, even for Lily. For example, she wasn't expecting to have left her Potions book in the Charms classroom. She wasn't expecting to have to go back and retrieve it as quickly as possible. She wasn't expecting to have to take a shortcut that she rarely used.

She certainly wasn't expecting to find James Potter and a thin blonde girl snogging against the wall.

Several options ran through her mind. She could cause a scene, start yelling at him. She could attack the girl. She could clear her throat just loudly enough that they heard her. But she couldn't bring herself to do any of those. So instead, she turned away, meaning to just walk off. They could discuss it in private later, after all.

Of course, luck wasn't on her side today, and she tripped over her own feet. The noise from her knees hitting the floor with a soft _thud_ broke the two apart. "Bloody he—" James started, apparently irritated at being interrupted. But then he noticed who it was and he snapped back to reality. "Oh, god. Lily, are you alright?" James went to offer her a hand up, but she declined, standing for herself.

"Peachy," she snapped.

"I, uh… I know how this looks, but, er…" He ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of what to say as he glanced between the two girls.

"Save it," she muttered, storming off.

"I'm sorry! Lily, come back! Can't we just talk about this?"

She threw an obscene hand gesture his way over her shoulder and picked up the pace. Did he _really_ want to have this little chat in public?

"C'mon, Lily, you know I love you!"

That made her stop. She whirled around and found herself face to face with him. "Oh, _now_ you say it." Her tone was meant to be snippy, but it just came out sad. She blinked rapidly, trying to keep tears at bay, as she ran off, leaving a very confused James behind her.

* * *

James ditched the rest of his classes for the afternoon. No way could he concentrate on anything at the present. The look of pain on his girlfriend's face was burned into his mind, and it was all he could think about. He had to apologize the next time he saw her—and he would, of course—but he just had a feeling that sorry wouldn't cut it.

As he made his way back to the Common Room, he mulled over what she'd said. _"Oh, _now_ you say it." _What was that supposed to mean? Now he said _what?_ Man, girls were more trouble than they were worth sometimes. All the deciphering instead of giving a clear message.

"Filibuster," he mumbled to the Fat Lady, not sure what the word meant. He didn't really care.

He should've known she'd be here. And there she was, curled up in a chair by the fire. She wasn't talking to anyone or reading or writing or _anything,_ just staring into the flames. He took a deep breath and tentatively took a seat on the floor next to her.

Lily tensed at once. "What do you want?"

He winced. She didn't sound angry. He could deal with angry Lily. But she sounded broken, and it was his fault. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

She laughed mirthlessly. "Glad to hear it."

"I really am sorry," he continued. "I didn't mean to." He realized how empty that sounded. "I mean, it wasn't exactly an accident. I mean," he corrected again. That was going to become his most-used phrase if he didn't just spit it out. "I mean, I didn't set out this morning thinking, _you know what, today seems like a fine day to cheat on my girlfriend!_ I don't know what happened. She was there and she was flirting and she said she wouldn't tell."

Lily just stared at him.

"I'm not helping my case, am I?"

She shook her head. "There's not a whole lot you could say right now that would help your case, Potter."

Ah, she'd reverted to using his last name again. He had a lot of ground to make up for, then. "I know. It was wrong, I shouldn't have done it, and it'll never happen again or you can hex me. I love you!"

Instead of cracking a smile, she frowned and looked even more sad than before. "There you go again."

"What do you mean?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. Now she'd lost him.

"We've been dating since September. That's six months, in case you can't count, Potter. You haven't once said that you love me, but you just casually throw it out like that to try to make a bad situation better, or make up for messing up."

"But I do love you!" he protested.

"How can I believe that?" she asked, getting out of the chair. He didn't think he'd ever seen someone looking so crushed before. She was trying to put on a tough front, but her appearance was that of the totally devastated. "When two minutes before you said it, you were busy snogging some fifth year?"

* * *

It had been a week, and James and Lily hadn't fixed things yet. Their friends—the Marauders, especially—had passed concerned and were now downright worried that the pair would never work through the issue. The idea of Lily and James not being together anymore upset them so much that it drove them to take action.

After a brief chat with Mary involving a little bit of subtle coercion and heaps of outright bribery, Remus and Sirius had their plan set out. Peter would blow it, so they chose to leave him out. He'd probably get his feelings hurt in the short term, but surely he'd recognize the long-run significance of their plan.

When Mary descended from her dormitory back to the Common Room, all she had with her was a single slip of parchment, which she passed to Sirius, who nodded at Lupin. Time to kick it into action. While Remus left in search of Lily—hardly a search, considering he had what a certain redhead had affectionately dubbed _that blasted map_—Sirius started to read. "Blimey," he muttered. He had his work cut out for him.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Lily was in the library, working alone. She had an unfocused look about her, like she was looking at the words on pages but not actually _reading,_ merely mindless flipping pages without processing any of it. "Did _he_ send you?" she asked tonelessly without looking up.

"No," Lupin replied, sitting across from her without asking. "But it _is_ about him."

"Oh, goodie, let's hear it!" She slammed the book shut and looked at him with wide, pseudo-interested eyes.

"Before I begin, I want you to know that I'm _not_ defending what he did. I—"

"Which means," Lily cut in. "That you're about to defend him."

"No, really. I'm not. I think it's awful. I _know_ it's awful. Hell, even _Sirius_ yelled at him for it!"

That got her attention. Sirius, well-known as the school's biggest player, had gotten angry about it? Huh.

"But do you know _why_ he did it?" He braced himself for a verbal assault.

"Oh, yes, he made _sure_ to tell me that. _Because she was there, and because she was flirting!_" It was stinging all over again.

"He loves you, Lily, and even though you two have been together now for—what?—six months, roundabout?—he still doesn't feel like he's good enough."

"But he _is_ good enough," she whispered. "And if he loves me, why would he do that?" _And why wouldn't he tell her before now?_

"James has a huge ego. I know, I know, this is a shock. I'll give you a moment to process this newfound information," he joked, before resuming the serious tone. "He doesn't feel like you love him back, or like you still look down on him the way you did the first five and a half years. It's the stupidest thing, but he was down and he needed an ego boost and he had a moment of weakness and the opportunity presented itself."

"So what you're saying is," Lily said slowly, making sure she understood correctly. "He cheated because he loves me?" It was perhaps the most ridiculous statement she'd made in her life.

"Not exactly. But he, for some reason, doesn't think you love him, and it's been driving him mad for weeks, and he snapped, I guess. He regrets it. When he told us about it, he _cried._ He honest to god broke down and cried. Said he'd finally done it, finally pushed you away. That he knew it was too good to be true and that he'd always known he'd do something to screw it up. I don't think he's slept right this whole week." His friend's schoolwork had been suffering due to the lack of sleep, and he had a funny feeling that Lily's had also.

"But Remus…he hasn't said that he loves me. He didn't say it until after I caught him, like he's just throwing it out there or something to get me to forgive him." She hadn't voiced this concern yet, save for when she tried to explain it to James.

"Did you ever think that maybe he was waiting for you to say it first?"

* * *

"Prongs, mate, we've gotta talk." Sirius hated that he had to be the one to do this, but it was how they worked it out: no matter how close he was to the other two Marauders, James's best friend was Sirius. And Lily was most likely to listen to Lupin.

"About what?" came the muffled reply. He was sprawled across his bed, hands covering his face.

"This," Sirius said, showing him what he had as James pulled himself to a seated position.

"What is it?" He didn't look interested at all.

"It's the letter Lily had planned on giving you last week. Y'know, before…well." He sighed. "Mary told me about it, how she'd been fretting for a couple weeks and had finally just wrote it all down, and that's why it was so damn important for her to get her Potions book. She had it stuck in there to give you later."

James groaned. "How bad is it?"

"Er, it'll succeed in making you feel even more guilty, which is a plus." He frowned, beginning to doubt that this was such a brilliant idea. "You don't have to r—"

"Like hell I don't!" He snatched it away and started reading.

_James,_

_I've been trying so hard to figure out how to say this. I want to say it to your face, but I can't, not without knowing that you feel the same way. Before we started dating, you were always so open with your affection. But now, I don't know how you feel, and it's killing me. I know I sound so needy—oh, why doesn't he just SAY how he feels?—but it'd be nice to know._

_Since I'm not quite bold enough to live up to my status as a Gryffindor, I'm saying this in writing instead of in person. The past six months have been amazing, James. I'm so glad I gave you a chance, because you proved me wrong. You aren't that same arrogant fifteen-year-old you used to be. You've grown up, and you've grown on me, and somewhere along the way—and mind you, I don't know when I'll forgive you for this—I fell in love with you._

_There. I said it. I get it if you don't want to say it back yet, or ever, but it's out now. I love you._

—_Lily_

"Damn it," James cursed under his breath. "I really messed up, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. And I'll always be in your corner—you know that—but I've gotta take her side in this."

"I know. So do I." How couldn't he? He'd been stupid and selfish; for a fleeting moment, he'd transformed back into that fifteen year old Lily wouldn't give the time of day. All for an ego boost. No way was he siding with himself. "But what am I supposed to do now?"

* * *

"Oi, Evans!" he shouted. He noted the way her shoulders scrunched together for a split second, like she was anticipating a blow of some sort. But she didn't even acknowledge him. So he sprinted, sliding to an ungraceful stop directly in front of her.

"What is it?" she asked warily.

"I'm sorry, and I _know_ that sorry isn't enough, but just tell me what I have to do to make it up to you, because I love you, I love you so much that it hurts, and I always have and I always will, and if you're done with me, fine, but if you think for one second that I'm giving up on you because _I _made a mistake, then you're out of your mind, because I love you so damn much, Lily, and—wait, why are you looking at me like that?"

A smile played at the edges of her lips as she explained, "Just wondering when you're going to shut up long enough for me to kiss you, that's all."

* * *

A crappy title for a reasonably crappy fic. I am not, unfortunately, JKR, although sometimes I like to pretend that she's a lost very distant relative.

Edit: I've gotten a couple messages/reviews about this, and I'd just like to clear something up: I wrote this a while back and found it buried in my Jily folder on my old computer. I'd written it right after getting out of a relationship with someone who cheated pretty much the entire time we were together. (For various reason: "I was bored." "I was lonely." "It was a dare." "It was her idea!" "I don't know." Etc.) My way of dealing with things is to make them silly so they're not as tough to deal with, so I wrote this. I made cheating into a silly thing so that I could write her forgiving him, since at that moment I wasn't at a point where I could forgive my recent ex. And then when I found it again I thought, eh, it's stupid and actually not even very well-written, but I may as well publish it. That's all.


End file.
